It’s been another busy year at Metro. In the same year the Blue Line — Metro’s oldest light rail line — turned 25, construction continued on five rail projects, including two that will open next year: the Gold Line extension to Azusa and the Expo Line extension to Santa Monica.

Above and below are photos and text, respectively, of some of the happenings in this past year, as well as a look ahead to 2016. Please enjoy and feel free to add anything you think we may have missed!

January

After five years on the job and overseeing the first five years of Measure R, Metro CEO Art Leahy announced in January that he would be departing his job in April.

The decking was completed on Crenshaw Boulevard for the underground Crenshaw/Expo Station. The decking allowed traffic to resume on that part of Crenshaw with station excavation and construction taking place underneath. This is the first of several underground stations Metro is building as part of the Crenshaw/Expo Line, Purple Line Extension and Regional Connector.

Speaking of the Regional Connector, demolition began of several buildings (including Senor Fish) on the chunk of land along 1st Street and between Alameda and Central where the future underground Little Tokyo Station will be built.

The Business Solution Center opens to help businesses impacted by Crenshaw/LAX construction continue to attract customers. It’s part of a renewed effort by Metro to lessen the impacts of rail construction in L.A. County.

Metro releases a report on an issue we often get asked about: will there ever be a Red/Purple Line station in the DTLA Arts District? Answer: possibly near 6th and Santa Fe and if funding can be found.

Metro and Alternative Travel Project (ATP) host a panel discussion about access, safety and opportunities for women seeking an alternative to car travel. This one gets a lot of attention on social media with a solid push from activist and actress Stana Katic.

With work continuing or ramping up on three rail projects — the Crenshaw/LAX Line, Regional Connector and Purple Line Extension — Metro launches the Business Interruption Fund to provide financial help to businesses that can demonstrate they’ve been harmed by construction impacts.

The Dodger Stadium Express begins another season of service to Dodger Stadium from Union Station and the Harbor Gateway Transit Center. Metro’s Vlogs the details.

May

The Metro Board approves a $5.6-billion budget for the fiscal year running from July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016. And here’s a podcast we did about the ins and outs of the budget.

Our podcast on the “art of the Metro service alert” is posted. If you ride often, it’s worth a listen and provides a good overview of the many issues that we often grapple with.

The route for the Metro-sponsored CicLAvia in Pasadena may not have been long but it sure was popular. See the pics.

Metro begins a two-month all-door boarding test program at a couple of stops on the Metro 720 Rapid on Wilshire Boulevard. Not a huge surprise: all door boarding proves to be quicker. Update: Metro applied for a federal TIGER grant to push all-door boarding forward, but didn’t win the grant. The agency is evaluating how to go forward with all-door boarding.

Metro released results of a general public survey of county residents to determine if a potential 2016 ballot measure has a chance of getting the two-thirds approval necessary to pass. The results: cautiously optimistic.

New prompts debut on TAP vending machines. The prompts were designed to be easier to follow, especially for those new to using Metro.

Metro announces an agreement with Zipcar to provide space for the short-term rental cars at 10 Metro park-and-ride stations. The idea is to make it easier to get around using a combination of public transit and car-sharing.

Metro celebrates 25 years of Metro Rail and reenacts the July 1990 opening of the Metro Blue Line, the first of six Metro Rail lines now in operation (the Red and Purple Lines share track in DTLA). The Source runs a corresponding two-part question-and-answer series about the past, present and future of Metro Rail (Part I and Part II).

We post a pretty cool time-lapse of the decking work at the future Crenshaw/Vernon Station on the Crenshaw/LAX Line.

September

The first of five Metro bike hubs opens in El Monte, offering bicyclists secure parking with controlled entry, two-tiered racks, a retail sales and repair service area, and bike rentals. Here’s a post about future bike hubs at Union Station, North Hollywood, Culver City and Hollywood/Vine.

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension reaches substantial completion. The milestone signifies the completion of major construction on the six station, 11.5-mile extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena to Azusa.

The city of Torrance breaks ground on a new regional transit center that one day could be home to a Green Line Extension station. Metro provides $18.1 million in Measure R funding for the project.

A state appeals court upholds the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for Purple Line subway extension after Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) challenged the validity of the environmental studies and Metro’s decision to route the subway under part of Beverly Hills High School. A federal lawsuit against the Federal Transit Administration — which is helping fund the project — continues.

A new staff report is released with details on work on the ongoing long-range plan update and the potential sales tax increase ballot measure in 2016. About the same time, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that would allow Metro to go forward with a ballot measure next year.

November

[From editor Steve Hymon:] One of our best posts of the year goes up: 12 communities before and after transit has a ton of maps that shows development near transit in the past quarter century in L.A. County.

The Metro Board approves a fare structure for the downtown Los Angeles bike share pilot program scheduled to get underway this coming summer.

Congress includes annual funding for the Purple Line Extension (segments 1 and 2) and the Regional Connector in its annual spending bill. Funding for both projects is supposed to be doled out on an annual basis — but it’s always good to see that the money is actually appropriated.

Metro releases a speed study of the Orange Line that concludes that Metro can safely run the Orange Line faster through some intersections in the San Fernando Valley. The faster speeds should take effect next year after some improvements are made on the line.

This leads us to the anticipation part of the year. There were many milestones reached in 2015 with more milestones to come in 2016:

•The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension to Azusa is set to open on March 5. The extension will add an additional 11.5 miles and six new stations to the existing Gold Line line. The opening will coincide with the launch of the NoHo-Pasadena Express bus service that will connect the Gold Line in Pasadena to the Metro Red and Orange Lines in North Hollywood.

•The 8.5-mile Crenshaw/LAX line that will run from the Metro Expo Line Expo/Crenshaw Station to the Metro Green Line Aviation/LAX station is anticipated to reach the construction halfway point. The line is forecast to be complete in 2019. The tunnel boring machine (TBM) for the project is also anticipated to be put into service in 2016.

•Metro may ask voters for an additional half-cent sales tax and to extend the Measure R half-cent sales tax until 2057 to fund more projects as part of its long-term plan update. Metro staff is expected to release a proposed expenditure plan for the ballot measure in March. It will ultimately be up to the Metro Board to decide whether to put a ballot measure before voters.

•The Federal Transit Administration and Metro are expected to sign a $1.2-billion grant agreement for segment two of the Purple Line Extension between Wilshire/La Cienega and Century City.

•Installation of bike share kiosks are expected to begin in the spring with the launch of bike share in DTLA in summer. It will be the first bike share program in the city of L.A. and, if successful, it may be expanded to other areas in L.A. County.

•The Universal City Station pedestrian bridge over Lankershim Boulevard is expected to open. The bridge is being built to make it safer for those walking between Universal City getting across Lankershim from the Universal City Station safer for pedestrians.

•Two miles north on Lankershim, a pedestrian tunnel that connects the Orange Line station and Red Line station in North Hollywood is expected to open in 2016.

•The Division 13 Operations and Maintenance facility in DTLA and adjacent to Union Station is expected to open early in the new year.

•Metro will hold the first ever Industry Forum on February 11 to help gleam the best ideas in the transit and finance industries for improving Metro service and possibly expanding funding for Metro projects in the future.

Of course the most-anticipated rail opening should come this spring as the Expo Line Phase 2 from Culver City to Santa Monica opens. I know Metro has not announced an opening date but I’m predicting at or around the 4th anniversary of the light rail line’s–April 23 is my guess.

Martin, the announcement of a date for Phase 2 of Expo opening probably won’t be until MTA feels certain about received the adequate number of new rail cars set for delivery in 2016. I think we could be looking at an opening as late as the summer or fall 2016.

I was indeed wondering whether they’d consider extending Phase I operations just two stops to Westwood–that’d bring the line 15 minutes from UCLA’s tremendous mass of riders, instead of 0:50
many at UCLA commute from Culver City already–or from even further abroad: it’d cut my trips to the Westside to 2:30 from 3:00 one-way

I’ve been a Metro rider for many years and appreciate the work done to improve the lines. I usually ride the Blue Line from LB transit mall clear to Pico Station or the last stop. I very much like arriving to work/home not stressed by commuting by car. Please consider doing away with the fare honor system, it invites insane, rude, occasionally dangerous and often unhygienic riders. Of course it would cost money, but ridership would increase if professionals who are willing to give up driving to work felt safe, most wouldn’t chance it after reading online reviews of the Blue Line.